Step
by Hellonurse
Summary: The first step was the step he took into that ship. That first step was very important and he knew it. She knew it. Everyone could sense it later, after many steps had been taken on the bridge.


This is my first Outlaw Star fanfiction. I wrote it on a whim after just finishing the series again after ages of not having seen it. This is pretty rough, but like I said wrote it on a whim. Reviews are appreciated.

Outlaw Star isn't mine.

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The first step was the step he took into that ship. That first step was very important and he knew it. She knew it. Everyone could sense it later, after many steps had been taken on the bridge. They knew that the first step had been the most important even though they hadn't witnessed it.

The second step had been with her resting on his shoulder in the dim moonlight of their offices. Her soft breathing giving him goose bumps.

_I feel like I can dream like this._

He didn't want to go back to sleep.

The third step was another that he took onto the bridge. It was what he thought would be the last step he took onto the bridge. He thought the last thing he would see was Melfina, trying to keep him alive in her navigational tank. He thought he was dying and so, he tried to accept that he was going to die. He had heard it was easier that way.

_You have to open your heart._

Well, why not? What could it hurt?

Next, there was the pent up anger. The yelling and the confusion. She had saved his life and yet he found himself screaming at her.

_What were you made for?_

_I don't know. I don't know._

How was that helping? How are you helping this girl in anyway? He thought back on it later. Decided that he was an ass and left it at that. He never fully apologized. Apologizing would be acknowledging what he had failed to do. What he had already resigned to the file in his brain of 'cannot complete, will not acknowledge'.

Despite this resignation he still yelled. He was letting her down and he knew it so he took it out on her. Melfina was the problem. He made her the problem. Made it so that he could push his feelings for the young bio- android to the back of his brain, out of his heart and down, down until it was in his toes and he could no longer feel them. At least, for the time being. The feelings would resurface at the most inopportune moments.

He would be leaning over her, talking to her about the ship. He would smell her hair, notice how her ears connected so expertly to her head. Leaning over her he would see the way her thin fingers moved carefully, as if she was touching something made of glass. He would notice how small her shoulders were, how she was covered in muscles, just like him. He would notice how these muscle moved under her skin. How he wanted to touch every inch of her with his calloused fingertips and then he would think of how she, Melfina, would gaze at him with those eyes and ask him as he tried to taste every inch of her perfect skin:

_What am I?_

Then, the anger would bubble up again. He would push the feelings to his toes again. He would yell. She would whisper, never once raising her voice to him. How did she deal with his shit and not just want to hit him? He didn't understand. He didn't understand, so, he yelled.

It was his final step toward her at the Leyline that finally allowed him to be as candid with her as he possibly could. It had been Suzuka pushing him along coupled with the slight jealousy of Harry McDougal. It was these things and Melfina's perfect skin and muscles that pushed him along at the Leyline. It was the fact that he loved her and everyone but him had already acknowledged it. Then, he was at the Leyline with her and then he knew. He knew for a fact that he loved her. He felt something akin to admiration for her, being as strong as she was in light of everything. He moved toward her, took her hand in his, brought his rough lips to her soft ones.

When he opened that box, never in a million years did he expect to be there, in that place, at the Leyline kissing Melfina on the lips. Lips he could have only dreamed of. At the Galactic Leyline he could wish for whatever he wanted. He hadn't even wished yet and here he was, getting what he had wanted for months. Something he had wanted and pushed away. He was satisfied.

He asked what she wanted.

She had wished for him and him, in turn, for her.

He was more than satisfied.

It was weeks after the incident at the Leyline that he had decided to start all over again for the second time. When he got out of prison he would make another life changing step onto that bridge with his best friend and the woman that put up with him. His skin had tingled with excitement as he lay waiting to be released from prison. He sensed a new adventure with his new family and Melfina.

Then, he took that first step onto the bridge. Another life changing step.

"You're still you," his own words escaped her lips from behind him.

"I am, aren't I?" He half- turned to look back at the girl standing behind him. Waiting for him to take the leap, the plunge, the step toward the rest of his life with her. With the Outlaw Star.

He gave her that self- assured half smirk that he reserved for just such occasions of seriousness.

"Are you glad?" she whispered, the same tone of unsure hesitation registering to him.

"Glad that I'm still me?" he asked.

"Glad that you and I are we? That you are still you and I am still me. That we are we."

He took a moment to turn and look down at her. He smirked again and admired the way that she looked up at him, admired the muscles that ran under her skin.

Muscles that ran under her skin in the same way that the muscles ran under his. He stretched his hand out and cupped her cheek with it, and then leaned down as he had done at the Leyline and pressed his rough lips to her. He felt her jaw bone, the muscles tense under his touch. This was right.

This was a step in the right direction.


End file.
